It’s hard to pin the Bruins’ troubles on David Pastrnak alone, but Tuesday night was the kind of game that shows how quickly one bad top-six setup can drag everything down. Boston fell 2-1 to the Carolina Hurricanes, and Pastrnak’s line with JJ Peterka and Pavel Zacha was rough from start to finish.
The eye test was ugly enough. The advanced numbers only made it worse.
HockeyStats had that trio at a 3.3% xGF%, with just 0.06 xGF and 1.80 xGA. That’s about as far from a productive night as you can get.
Whether the issue is Pastrnak settling in, Peterka being quiet, or Zacha dealing with his own problems, the three of them simply haven’t clicked.
The other top-six group has its own issues, too. Morgan Geekie has been grinding through the first month of the season, and at this point it’s fair to wonder whether he’s slowing down Marat Khusnutdinov and Fraser Minten, even though both sophomores have been playing well. Too many possessions are ending with the puck on Geekie’s stick and nowhere to go.
That points to a cleaner fix: put Geekie, Zacha and Peterka together, and restore the Pastrnak-Minten-Khusnutdinov trio that worked last season but never got a real extended run.
Some of the underlying numbers for that Pastrnak-Minten-Khusnutdinov line weren’t pretty in 2025-26, but over 188 minutes together they still outscored opponents 15-6. There was clearly something there, and the comparisons some people drew to the Perfection Line came for a reason.
Minten and Khusnutdinov also look more seasoned now after a strong rookie season, and they may be exactly the kind of young legs Pastrnak needs beside him. They deserve a winger who doesn’t stall the attack, and they may be getting tired of watching so many shifts die on Geekie’s stick.
If Boston makes that switch, it leaves Zacha, Geekie and Peterka to sort things out on their own. And if it takes a little time, Marco Sturm can at least take comfort in the fact that lines three and four haven’t slipped since being put together. The hope is that moving Pastrnak back with the two young forwards gives the Bruins three lines they can actually trust.
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What matters now is how that new voice shapes the next phase for a team that has already spent this season trying to define itself on and off the ice. Boston has dealt with its share of roster questions, but this kind of move lands differently because it affects the people steering the ship rather than the players skating on the ice. For Bruins fans, the bigger question is not the title change itself, but how the clubs direction evolves once the handoff is complete. [Read more 🡒]